SAI BABA GITA – Part IV - Answers for all questions

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God now and then cannot be called meditation. Meditation is thinking of God at

all times, under all circumstances. It is a continuous, unceasing process.

Embodiments of Love, The constant remembrance of God is the method in which you

continuously keep turning the mind inwards to become united with the indwelling

Lord. This can correctly be called meditation. Any practice that you engage in

periodically is a concentration practice. Such a practice will usually focus on

a chosen object and be associated with a particular place and time. True

meditation, on the other hand, goes on continuously. It is completely free of

all objects and phenomena and completely transcends the element of place and

time. Therefore, in the Gita, the ongoing practice of meditation has been

described as superior to any type of periodic

practice. But, there is a practice even superior to meditation. The ultimate

spiritual practice is the development of wisdom. Wisdom emerges from inner

inquiry. It is the spiritual practice of looking deep into the essential nature

of everything. If you faithfully pursue this inquiry, you will gradually reach

the supreme state of peace and bliss. This is the unique goal of human life, a

goal which all mankind will one day achieve. The three Stages on the Wisdom

Path To reach the state of abiding inner peace, you begin by inquiring into the

very heart of everything. This is the process of inner inquiry, the first stage

on the wisdom path. Then you must make use of the deep insights you have gained

by applying the spiritual teachings to every detail of your daily

life. This is the second stage. If you continue with this practice unfailingly,

then, in time, you will reach the goal of God-realization and enjoy unending

bliss. This is the third and final stage on the wisdom path. You can compare

the first stage to the period of life when you are a student. As a student and

spiritual seeker you are most active in acquiring knowledge. While you are in

this stage you inquire into the principle which underlies everything in the

universe. You try to understand the deeper meaning of the great wisdom sayings,

such as that thou art. Here, that refers to the eternal divine principle we call

God, and thou refers to the immortal self, which is the one true reality of

everyone. In this first stage you try to understand this saying, which states

that the highest self and God are one and the same, and you look for this

oneness in the core of

everything. So, you start off by seeking the unity underlying everything in

existence. Then, having become aware of it, you live your life by applying this

great truth to all your daily activities. This second stage can be compared to

the period of life when you are employed and busy in your profession. If you

have not pursued your education and earned good qualifications, you will not be

able to find an appropriate position. Therefore, in the first stage you acquire

a good education and develop your knowledge so that in the next stage you can

put that education into practice and use it to do your life's work. The third

stage can be likened to the later period of life when you are retired and

become a pensioner. You receive a pension only after you have completed your

working career. You start your career and gain employment, in the first

place, only after you have successfully completed your education and acquired

qualifications. These then are the three stages in your path through life

namely, first is the stage when you are a student, then there is the stage when

you are a professional, and lastly, there is the stage when you are a pensioner.

Similarly, on the path of wisdom, you start out as a seeker, then you become a

practitioner, and finally, you become a wise illumined one. In this final stage

you enjoy complete peace of mind and realize the unity of all of creation. To

permanently acquire peace of mind and the state of unending inner joy, you

first have to enter into the stage of inquiry and give up all attachments to

the world. These days, so-called spiritual seekers are first entering into the

stage of attachment, and later they try to enter the stage of inner

inquiry. They call each other brother and sister and aspire to practice unity,

while at the same time taking on new worldly attachments. At best, they can

only be described as part-time devotees. The Gita does not condone such

part-time devotion. The Gita teaches complete surrender by offering oneself and

everything one has to God. God is the Master of Time In order to experience the

principle of complete surrender you need to become aware of time, and how it

exercises total power over all that is changing, and yet, how it is utterly

powerless over the unchanging divinity, which is its master. God is not subject

to time. He not only is not under the spell of time, but he keeps time under his

control. The one who is bound by time is man; the one who transcends time is

God. The one who is mortal is man; the one who is

immortal is God. Only when you take shelter in divinity will you be able to

transcend this element of time. Time consumes man, whereas God consumes time

itself. It is time which is responsible for man's progress or man's decline,

for the promotion of his good or his fall into evil, for his earning merit or

storing demerit. Therefore, in the ancient scriptures we find this prayer: O

God, you are the very embodiment of time. Please, help me to sanctify my life

and spend all my time in remembrance of you, so that I may safely reach your

lotus feet. The entire world is inextricably enmeshed in the grip of time. It

is not possible to fight against this element of time. Time does not wait for

anyone. You are bound by time, time is not bound by you. Time can be compared

to a great flowing river. All living beings are washed away by

this flow of time. If you are washed away by a flood you cannot take protection

and shelter in someone or something which is also being washed away. You, as

well as the people and objects in which you try to find security, are all being

washed away by the flood of time. If you seek to gain protection from something

that is itself being washed away, it is like a blind person following another

blind person. In the end, they both get lost. But if you were to be helped by

someone who is standing securely on the bank, you would surely be saved. The

one on the bank who is not caught up in the flood of time is God. If you take

refuge in God you will be able to free yourself from all the troubles and

problems associated with time. God has proclaimed the principle of surrender

and emphasized its importance by telling man, "O man, you are being washed away

by the flood of time. The only one who can shelter you is myself.

Take refuge in me, and I will save you." When you obey this divine command and

offer yourself, your wealth, your property, your entire family at the Lord's

feet and surrender yourself completely, then you will surely be saved. The Veil

of Illusion At first it is difficult to experience this principle of surrender

because there is a very big veil between you and God. Due to this veil, you are

easily subject to doubt and confusion, and then you feel yourself unable to

surrender completely. This veil is illusion. What is the meaning of illusion?

Illusion refers to that which does not exist. When you are under the spell of

illusion you imagine that which does not really exist to exist. And you imagine

that which really exists to not exist. What never changes really exists and is

true. What changes does not really exist and is not true.

The one thing which always exists, which is true and unchanging is God, the one

without a second. The world, when thought to be devoid of God, will be seen as

constantly changing. Since it is changing, it cannot be true and, therefore,

cannot really exist. But, in this, you are not seeing the world correctly. When

you are under the spell of illusion, you see the world as separate from God. You

do not see the divinity as the principle underlying everything in the world, and

as a result, you become afraid and find it impossible to surrender yourself

completely. It is like seeing a rope and thinking that it is a snake. But there

is no snake there at all. You are subjected to fear and tension by imagining

that there is a snake where there really is no snake, at all. What is the

reason for this fear? Imagining things which really do not exist, as existing,

is the cause of fear. This feeling is responsible for all

your troubles. If you were to see all this in total awareness, you would find

that there is only a rope; there is no snake. Then you would have no fear

whatsoever. You would not be afraid to reach out to it, to hold it and to play

with it, because you would realize that all there is, is only a rope. You are

subject to many sorrows because you forget the fact that the entire world is

the embodiment of God. It is not just the world as you think it is. You see the

world only from the phenomenal point of view; you are not looking at it through

the eyes of inquiry. If you were to look at the world correctly, you would

realize that it is a stream of continuous change. This ongoing, uninterrupted

flow of change is the basic characteristic of the phenomenal world. But within

and governing that flow of change, is the one divine principle which is forever

unchanging.

TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It can be likened to a river. The water in the river will

flow continuously and give rise to the apparent effect of a steady stream,

flowing without end. But at any given period of time, and at any particular

place along the river, the particles of water rushing by will all be different;

some will be muddy, some will contain rocks, some will be foamy, some will be

pure water. Although the flow is continuous, the exact makeup of the water is

constantly changing. We see that the river is a combination of both changing

and unchanging elements. In a similar way beings, which are the expressions of

life, are born and die. Although they come and they go, there is a continuity

of life in the world. Life which goes on continuously can be considered to be

truth, whereas living beings which are born and die and are constantly

changing, represent untruth. Therefore, the changing expressions of life are

untrue, but life itself, which is a steady stream whose essence is the divinity,

is true. The World as a River of Truth and Untruth That is why the world has

been likened to a river, where reality has become associated with unreality, or

change. You can consider it a stream of changing truth, a truth which is

qualified and not fully true. The world is a combination of pure truth, which

remains the same and never changes, and untruth, which deals with things that

are constantly changing. The wisdom teachings have described this state as

truth-untruth, namely, a mixture or combination wherein both truth and untruth

coexist. Spiritual practice is the process whereby you separate the truth from

the untruth, and retain the truth. You see the illusion that the world exists

separately from yourself and God for what it is, namely untruth.

Once recognized as untruth you are no longer deluded by it, and the truth, which

is the unity of God, man and world, stands revealed. Ignorance, nature, world,

illusion, mind, maya are all synonymous. They are all the illusory power of

God. Thinking that things exist which do not really exist, and coming under

their spell, is illusion. A saint summarized this as, "God is true but the

world is false". You must understand this statement correctly. What it means is

that our mistaken perception and experience of the world is untrue. The world

itself, in essence, is true. God is the one, unchanging basis of this world of

change. When you examine this in some depth you discover that the world is

truly not world, but the divinity itself. Hold on to God alone In

the Gita, Krishna told Arjuna, "Arjuna, you are subjecting yourself to this

element of time. You are getting yourself caught up in its flow, and you are

going far, far away from me. Surrender yourself to me and all your sorrows will

soon be removed." When you are associated with God, when you are near him,

illusion cannot harm you. Here is a small example for this. In the expensive

homes of the wealthy there will often be a watchdog guarding the gate to keep

people out. This dog is not like a street dog; it has been brought up by its

owners with great affection and has been carefully trained. This dog does not

go on barking whenever it sees people walking or moving about. It starts

barking only when someone comes near the gate and tries to get in. When they

see the dog and hear the barking, most visitors will quickly leave the gate and

go away. Others, however, who have taken a firm resolve to meet the

owner of the house, will continue to stand there and loudly call out to the

owner of the house. Eventually, the owner, hearing all the commotion at the

gate, will look out from his upstairs window to see who is standing at the

gate. Once the owner recognizes the person waiting there to be his friend, he

will come down, go to the gate, let his friend in, and take him upstairs into

the house. When this apparent stranger, who had been waiting at the gate turns

out to be a friend of the master of the house and goes with him, the dog will

no longer bark at him or try to harm him. The dog now knows that this person is

being allowed in by the owner himself. Illusion can be compared to this dog. It

guards the gate of liberation and bliss. If a person comes who is not a friend

of the master of the house, if he has nothing to do there, but insists on

coming in through the gate, the dog will catch hold of him. Fearing the

consequences of being accosted by the dog, most people will run away. In a

similar fashion, most people, as soon as they experience some difficulties on

the spiritual path, will choose to turn away, instead of persisting on their

quest, undaunted by difficulties. And so, they do not reach their goal and thus

continue to be buffeted by the spell of illusion. But a real devotee, who in

this example is the person with a strong determination to reach the owner of

the house, does not mind the dog at all. He remains at the gate and attracts

the attention of the master, and stays there until the master comes out. To

such a persistent one waiting at the gate, even the barking of the dog, even

the pain caused by illusion is helpful, because the pain draws the attention

and compassion of the master inside. The master turns his gaze on the devotee,

recognizes him, and takes him into the house. Therefore, only the one with

courage and a strong resolute nature, who has decided to remain there no matter

how ferociously the dog is barking, will get to see the master and be able to

enter this palace of ultimate peace. Conquer your Senses The five senses and

the sense objects we perceive with them represent this dog of illusion which

will distract you and keep you from reaching God. It is for this reason that

Krishna told Arjuna, "Arjuna, you are attached to so many sense objects;

therefore you are ruffled by events. You have not been able to control your

senses and you have not been able to develop concentration. Therefore, you have

not been able to establish the divinity in your heart. Continue to cultivate

your practice of constantly turning your mind back to God dwelling in your

heart. Then you will gain concentration of mind. Only when you have

concentration of mind will you be able to fully surrender to God. At all times

and in all places always think of God. Whatever work you are doing, think of

God. Remember God with love. Remember God with faith. "Even when you are waging

a war, think first of God, then fight. This is not an ordinary war; this fight

you are now becoming involved in is not like a quarrel between you and some

other individuals. What you are fighting most of all is your own weakness, your

bad habits, all your limitations and frailties. With warm thoughts of love for

the divinity dwelling in your heart, wage this inner war and win. Remember you

are not just fighting a war against others. You are fighting your own inner

sense organs. So, do not quit until you have achieved victory, until you have

conquered your senses and fully mastered them." In an earlier age,

Prahlada also spoke of this inner fight to his father, the powerful demon king.

He said, "Father, you have won many wars and have gained lordship over numerous

worlds, but you have not been able to win a victory over your own senses. By

winning all the worlds outside you have become a powerful king, but only when

you can control your own senses will you be king of the whole universe. If you

keep being defeated by your inner senses, how can you ever win a lasting

victory against your enemies outside? When you win over your inner enemies, you

can easily win over the external ones, also." When is this possible? Only when

you surrender yourself completely to the divinity. You say, 'my objects',

'myself', 'my people'. As long as you have such feelings it will not be

possible for you to surrender. These are all attachments associated with the

physical realm. You will have to gain mastery over not only the physical,

but over the mental realm as well. Finally you will have to gain entry into the

spiritual realm. Once you have fully surrendered yourself and entered the

spiritual realm everything will be taken care of automatically, and you will no

longer be bothered by any burdens and cares. Give your Burdens to God When you

take a train journey, upon reaching the railway station you have to transport

your luggage via a porter, or by one means or another. If there is no one to

help you, you have to carry the luggage yourself. But once you enter the train

you can put the luggage down anywhere you like. Then you can relax and there is

no further bother with the luggage. The train will carry you and your luggage.

Nevertheless, there are some fools who will sit in the train and carry their

luggage on their heads. Those are the ones who have been

blessed with God's grace but still doubt and continue to follow their own

independent will. They have not surrendered fully. Once you surrender yourself

fully to the Lord and offer up everything that is to be done, as well as when

it is to be done and how it is to be done, at the Lord's feet, he will take

care of everything. To achieve this level of surrender there can be no trace of

ego left; there should be no sense of yourself remaining. This has been shown in

a particularly clear manner in the Ramayana by Lakshmana, the brother of Rama.

Let us pick up the story when Rama, Sita and Lakshmana during their exile in

the forest, were moving through a mountainous area. As is the Lord's nature, he

always loves to carry on some playful sport; he is the perfect actor. He never

has any sorrow or pain whatsoever, but sometimes he will act as

though he has these feelings. Whenever God comes down in human form he acts this

way in order to conduct himself in a natural way as man. The human form is taken

on by him so that he can be easily accessible to people. On that particular day,

Rama, the incarnation of God, acted as though he was very tired. He was removing

the sweat from his brow and telling Lakshmana, "Lakshmana, I am so tired. I

don't think I will be able to go any further. Please put up a hut somewhere

nearby, so that we can take a little rest." Lakshmana asked Rama, "Brother,

where shall we have this cottage?" Rama said, "You can decide for yourself

which place will be most appropriate, and then put it up." Lakshmana responded,

"Rama! Rama! What have I done? What is my error? What sins have I committed to

hear these words? Please let me know why you have spoken to me like this!" Now,

Rama knew the mind of Lakshmana and so he knew why

Lakshmana was saying this, but in order to help Sita understand the level of

Lakshmana's surrender, Rama said, "Lakshmana, please tell me what is troubling

you. What have I said that has made you feel so much pain?" Lakshmana replied,

"I have given up everything. I have given up wife, mother, father, kingdom,

everything. I have come along with you feeling that you are the father, that

Sita is the mother, and that wherever you are is our beautiful capital city of

Ayodhya. I have come only to implement your will. I have given up my own

individual will, and now you ask me to construct a hut and choose the place in

which to build it. Your command is my only thought. I have no other thoughts

than that. Whatever is your will, I will do. My only duty is to obey you. My

only goal, truly my everything, is you. You alone must tell me where the hut is

to be put up." Sita realized the depth of Lakshmana's devotion and

surrender. She turned to Rama and asked him to relieve Lakshmana's distress by

designating the site for the hut himself. Surrender fully to God The basic

lesson of this story is that man should not have any desires separate from the

one desire to fully surrender to God. Everything belongs to God, and only to

God. Surrender means implicitly following the commands given to you by the

Lord, whose directions will be clearly heard when he is enshrined in your

heart. Surrender is the basis of the declaration, "Come and sit in my train and

I will look after you. Let go of your ego-sense and desire. Don't carry your

baggage on your head and suffer." In this context, Krishna taught surrender as

the highest and most important stage of devotion. Once you have surrendered

yourself fully to the Lord, you will gain his grace. "Wherever you are, be it in

a town, in a village, in a forest or in the sky, I will be your refuge. Come and

surrender to me!" That is the command of the Lord, and that is also his promise.

Once you are his, he will shelter you and protect you from all harm. But,

surrender does not mean giving up your discriminating faculty. You must discern

what are desires and what is truly divine, and surrender all your worldly

desires, offering them to the divine. Make every effort to discover the right

way to surrender yourself, and thereby sanctify your life and reach the goal.

TO BE CONTINUED

0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: right">With Sai love from Sai brothers –

‘ Source: http://laluni.helloyou.ws/askbaba/saibabagita/

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